I wrote a couple more last summer but what with one thing and another they didn't get to web before the topicality passed. The problem was always cobbling together a decent amount before things came out or what-have-you, especially as Chris and I didn't really have a lot to do with fandom beyond this place.

"7"

MASTERPIECE JAZZ & BUMBLEBEE: FANS WORRIED

The recent announcement that TakaraTomy's revitalised Masterpiece line will be tackling popular child association characters Jazz and Bumblebee has sent fans into their usual spasms of panic.

"I've got Sideswipe and Soundwave and they're bloody fantastic," one fan told WWTF. "And Smokescreen... I might actually have sex with Smokescreen he looks so good. It isn't right, this isn't how Transformers should work."

This worrying form follows on from IDW's recent radical step of going 12 months without shitting all over their readership.

Long-term fans have backed Takara to repeat the success of their fan-favourite Binaltech line by putting out a couple of decent figures early on then throwing out any old rubbish in later waves in the hope of snaring completists, obsessives and other freaks.

One true fan, weighing some 21 stone, opined "Bumblebee will probably be modelled on the G2 Go-Bot one and Jazz will have his Martini decals replaced with sweary Engrish along the lines of 'Minty Raping' - there's no way they can actually get this right, is there?"

TF4 SLATED BY FANS

Scores of Transformers fans have been flooding bulletin boards with their reviews of Michael Bay's Transformers 4 throughout July, complaining about how different the film is from a cartoon made thirty years ago, how their favourite character is a bit different, how it isn't based on whatever IDW title is briefly in vogue this month, how they expected Michael Bay to drastically change a billion-dollar film franchise because a few nerds didn't like it and other vague, scared reasons.

When pressed most eventually admitted that the film wasn't out until 2014 and they had been caught out by the series' departure from a two-year cycle. However, the majority also admitted that the actual quality of the film was unlikely to change their congealed opinions.

FALL OF CYBERTRON MUCH BETTER THAN ANYTHING NOT FALL OF CYBERTRON

A poll of Fall of Cybertron fans has revealed that Fall of Cybertron is simply the best thing ever made. One Fall of Cybertron fan, who claims the group are to be referred to as 'focers' after the game's unmemorable acronym, said

"They should totally just follow Fall of Cybertron for everything. Bay should make a film that's just Fall of Cybertron exactly, without a single detail changed. That's just the sort of unoriginal rubbish he'd come out with.

And they should do a cartoon instead of that childish Prime rubbish; again, follow it exactly. Small children love boring computer game-based plots and action sequences, they just don't know it because there's all this fun stuff distracting them from how grown up Transformers is."

If you are accosted by a focer at any point their main weaknesses are sunlight, moderate exercise and the live-action movie tie-in games.

BOTCON STILL NOT SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE FOR PROPER PEOPLE

With Comic-Con gaining mainstream press coverage and the likes of Marvel Studios and Walking Dead making comics a more socially acceptable hobby (providing you're a hipster carrying at least three Apple products at all times and an unhealthy self-regard), the question has been asked as to whether tickets to the venerable BotCon will induce looks of envy from friends and colleagues rather than that glazed stare fans usually receive.

A comprehensive survey of real people has revealed the answer to be "No."

"8"

ALL TRANSFORMERS EVER NOW OFFICIALLY GAY

After intense online speculation about the sexuality of Deception Knock Out, Hasbro's official Poor Sod Who Has To Deal With Transformers' Fans Stupid Questions has cracked and declared every single Transformer ever is as bent as a nine-bob note.

Transformers fans have long been deeply distrustful of anyone who takes any basic care of their appearance, has good social relationships or who seem to have fun, meaning a long line of characters such as Tracks, Starscream and Sunstreaker being branded as bum-bandits.

The spokesman insisted: "Yes, all of them. Even the ones who get it on with girl Transformers, they're just hiding from their true feelings. The girls are all gay too - not in a sexy long-nail softcore porn mag sort of way, more the butch bulldyke type."

JAMES ROBERTS "JUST A WRITER"

Intensive research has revealed that James Roberts is just a really, really good comic writer and not actually some sort of God-like being. Issues of Roberts' comics have become sought-after collectors items on auction sites such as ebay due to the number which rapidly become damp and sticky after arriving in fanatics' hands. However, it turns out he's just good at his job, admittedly a first for a 21st century Transformers comic writer.

Roberts himself was unavaliable for comment but probably finds the wholesale adulation a little embarrassing.

HASBRO SELL OUT BY PITCHING TRANSFORMERS TO CHILDREN

Transformers fans have hit out at Hasbro's plans to make Transformers figures for children. The planned figures are much simpler than those of recent years, causing much consternation among 'adult' fans.

"**** the kids!" one exclaimed, in a bitter, angry rant. "I might have been a kid when I first got into Transformers and the simple, straightforward toys formed a big part of my childhood, which is probably why I feed on the nostalgia of still buying toys. I don't see why today's children should get to have the same straightforward entertainment when I'm not one of them."

NEW TRANSFORMERS NOVEL WRITTEN BY YOU WHEN YOU WERE 5

You are considering legal action after you realised Transformers: Retribution is based on a story you 'wrote' when you were five years old.

Your story was initially written in purple crayon and was four whole exercise book pages long including a smashing drawing of Prowl where you completely ****ed up his doors and then tried to colour over them.

You found the story, starring a new scary Decepticon called Tyrannicon, a few years ago when sifting through some old boxes and were burningly ashamed of just how bad it was while also realising that it was much better than anything Scott Ciencin ever managed.

Cheers guys... the problem is that 1) I'm notoriously unreliable and 2) I don't spend as much time reading TF news and stuff as I did even a couple of years ago, which leaves me a little low on fodder, it's usually just when my boredom takes me to the Wiki. More than happy for other people to do the thing, though.

It's interesting how some of them age (the Knockout bit doesn't work now we've had non-camp gay Transformers), but some like the reaction of fans to toys that are actually made for children are timeless.

I wandered over to the esteemed Seibertron.com and as I read the discussion there, these words slowly materialised on the wall in blood:

Manchildren confused by children's television programme

Transformers: Robots In Disguise is the franchise's latest cartoon show aimed at the 9-12 year old boy market. It premiered yesterday on Cartoon Network and was praised for its colourful, dynamic animation and lively action sequences. A team of Autobots protect Earth against the destructive actions of the Decepticons.

"My favourite is Sideswipe," said one ten year old boy. Sideswipe is the young, rebellious new recruit to the team. "I don't have his toy but he's a really cool red sports car. I saw it in Tesco."

Of course, no Transformers programme would be complete unless it launched alongside a solid wall of merchandise. Front and centre is Bumblebee, the beloved silent mascot of the previous series who has now landed a starring role.
"I've got three Bumblebees," said a seven year old girl. "He's funny. He talks now."

And where does that leave Optimus Prime, the sage-like father figure who is the indelible face of the franchise? In the last series, Transformers: Prime, Optimus sacrificed himself for the greater good. But nothing can keep Optimus Prime from the front lines (and toy shelves!) forever: he appears in Robots In Disguise as Bumblebee's spirit guide in the manner of Obi Wan Kenobi.

Rounding out the cast is Grimlock, a loveable rouge who turns into a menacing T-rex.
"He's a dinosaur!" said the target market.

Manchildren, however, were less pleased. One remarked, on-line, "Why does Sideswipe never once reference the important mission he went on in a computer game I played in 2012?"
"And why is Bumblebee the leader now," asked another before answering his own rhetorical hook thus - "I'll tell you why, it's so Hasbro can cram a million Bumblebee toys down our throat. Why do they do us, none of us like Bumblebee!"

As for the return of Optimus Prime, this series of Tweets from a manchild sparked a spirited discussion: "This series is dead to me after what they did with [Optimus] Prime in The Covenant" [of Primus, a high-priced book aimed at older audiences containing unused backstory concepts for the previous Transformers series]. "Can't relate to [Optimus] Prime as unkillable ghost member of [The Thirteen] like I could when he was an unkillable ghost just because"

Even the winning combination of giant robot and dinosaur could not win over the manchildren. An extract of a 60 000 word suicide note had this to say:
"Grimlock is completely at odds with his previous characterisation in the RoD comics. This will mess up the Wiki, a fan-run database I consider to be more worthwhile than the media it joylessly catalogues. I feel that in this dark post-Animated world we will not be blessed with an elaborate and unnecessary series of guide books that fits everything nicely into place and we will be forever exposed to a world that contains contradiction, subtlety and disorder."

Transformers: Robots In Disguise begins today on Cartoon Network and will be forgotten by everyone in under two years.

Thank you Clay. Your encouragement has caused me to loose another on the world:

Petition formed to put a stop to reckless imagination

The Transformers fandom was abuzz this week as yet another petition was launched to motivate license-holders to fill in some narrative gaps that mark a long-dormant storyline.

"In the original Transformers cartoon there is a 20 year gap between the end of Season 2 and the beginning of the theatrical movie, set in the year 2005," states the petition. The Sunbow Production series of 'The Transformers' ceased production in 1987. "So far, this gap can only be filled in our imaginations, in whatever form and length our minds can provide. The possibilities are literally endless, so long as they move towards an eventuality where all the characters are present, in their appropriate forms, at their starting marks as seen in the movie. This petition aims to put those much-needed limitations in place."

Such calls to curtail the collective imagination of the audience are not unprecedented in the Transformers community. In 2011, a fan-motivated petition to continue the storylines cut short in the Marvel Comics series of Transformers resulted in a 20-issue run of comics from IDW, the current license holders.

The effort, the Regeneration One comic, was a success - years worth of singular and collaborative efforts by fans to tie up loose ends and continue on the spirit and fun of the original comics, efforts that formed an important nucleus of early online fandom, which forged friendships and led to marriages, which gave an outlet to young, emerging artistic and writing talent, was all swept away in favour of a number of comics printed on glossy paper which had been approved by Hasbro, the company which owns the Transformers intellectual property.

"Regeneration One proved that it can be done," the petition goes on. "All those busy, busy minds speculating and inventing, all those talks at pubs and meet-ups, all those low-fi zines, they can disappear now. By getting the original creators involved who, after twenty years of growth, development and reflection, are no longer functionally the same people, we got the definitive, utterly sanctioned edition of what these characters were up to and what they will go on to do. But there are still people imagining what became of slightly different versions of those characters and that needs to stop right away."

"We have Flint DeLille interested," it warned.

A spokesperson for IDW commented on the fledgling petition, "At IDW, we thrive on transmuting the limitless imagination spawned by inventive properties into finite products printed on glossy paper. If somebody, somewhere, is imagining something about a profitable IP, we will correct them."

Thanks, Cliffy and R&R. That is ace. Intrigued by the talk of an edition.

Another one came to me on the way to the library:
Front line of gender equality war identified as Combiner Fan Poll

BREAKING - the ongoing struggle to have women, making up slightly more than one-half of all humans, recognised as legal, moral and intellectual equals to men has reached its peak on an unusual battlefield - the Hasbro Combiner Fan Poll.

The poll, a standard piece of choice architecture conducted through a downloadable app, allows fans of the Transformers franchise to vote on the components and characteristics that will make up a new 'Combiner,' a giant, Voltron-like Transformer made up of five or more smaller characters. Hasbro is devoting much of its Transformers product this year to the gimmick and the fan-chosen Combiner will be made available at retail. Not only can fans choose which 'modes,' like car or firetruck, each component of the combiner can be, they can also help to choose more abstract features of the toys such as their faction, colour and, most significantly, gender.

"A female Combiner would change everything," stated a high-ranking Tumblr user stationed at the foot of Tel Megiddo, said to be the site of the final battle for positive female representation in media. He was dressed in the uniform of his cause - practical Medieval armour that would fit a woman without showing much skin or overemphasising secondary sexual characteristics. "This is what we've been waiting for."

"I don't think the Combiner should be a girl," said a footsoldier of the opposition, who hadn't yet quite got round to leaving the house due to learning difficulties and profound social anxiety. He visibly struggled with the blazing Freudian implications of gendered characters 'combining' physically to overcome challenges for several moments before managing, "That would be weird."

"They made Windblade [the subject of last year's fan-mediated poll] a woman and now they want this too?" said a slightly more eloquent man who makes his living by recording himself playing computer games. "And they call us the fascists?" He then spent eighteen straight hours making dummy accounts from various IP addresses in an attempt to swing the vote towards the Combiner being male.

The world holds its breath as this conflict teeters on the brink.

In other news, the 200 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram soliders in Nigeria remain unfound.